Government fails to commit to diesel scrappage scheme in UK clean air plan

The government’s new plan to tackle the UK’s toxic air crisis does not commit to a scrappage scheme for dirty diesel cars and places the largest burden for solving the problem on to local authorities.

These could impose charges on older diesel cars to keep them out of polluted areas, but the government said other measures should be considered first.

Ministers were forced to act after a series of humiliating defeats in the courts, which ruled earlier plans illegal. ClientEarth, the environmental law firm which sued the government, is now examining the new proposals and could go back to court again if it decides the measures will not reduce illegal levels of air pollution in the “shortest possible time”, as the law demands.

Levels of nitrogen dioxide, emitted mostly by diesel vehicles, have been above legal limits in almost 90% of urban areas in the UK since 2010. The fumes are estimated to cause 23,500 early deaths a year and the problem was declared a public health emergency by a cross-party committee of MPs in April 2016.

The government first lost to ClientEarth over the adequacy of its strategy in April 2015 and was ordered to come up with a new plan. The release of these proposals was buried on the September Saturday in 2015 when Jeremy Corbyn was first elected Labour leader, while the final plan was published on “take out the trash day” in December that year, along with dozens of other ministerial statements and many hundreds of government documents.

However, the plan included just six clean air zones (CAZs) – Birmingham, Leeds, Nottingham, Derby, Southampton and London – where some polluting diesel vehicles would be charged to enter city centres. ClientEarth, believing this to be inadequate, went back to court and won again in November 2016.

Court documents revealed that the Treasury, then run by George Osborne, had blocked proposals from other government departments for 16 CAZs in towns and cities blighted by air pollution, due to concern about the political impact of angering motorists. Both the environment and transport departments also recommended changes to vehicle excise duty to encourage the purchase of low-pollution vehicles. But the Treasury also rejected that idea, along with a scrappage scheme for older diesels.

The government continued to delay action, asking the court for 10 months to develop another new strategy, but lost again, with the judge ordering a new draft plan by 24 April and a final plan by 31 July.

However, ministers then argued that the tradition of “purdah” before elections, when no official announcements are made, should allow the postponement of the strategy until after the general election on 8 June. This was again rejected, with Mr Justice Garnham saying: “The continued failure of the government to comply with directives and regulations constitutes a significant threat to public health.”

Conservative ministers have sought to blame previous Labour governments for giving tax breaks for diesel cars, which produce less climate-warming carbon dioxide. But experts say all governments since the 1990s have done this.

Furthermore, government officials at the time were aware that diesel cars produce high levels of NO2 but they expected tightening EU emissions regulations to curb the problem.

However, car manufacturers found ways to circumvent the rules and across the industry produced vehicles that emit far more NO2 on the road than in the official lab-based tests. Transport campaigners argue that, as in Germany and France, car makers should be forced to pay for upgrades to their vehicles to cut pollution.

“The real villains here are the car companies who cheated tests, and lied to everyone about the pollution coming from their diesel vehicles,” said Greenpeace’s Areeba Hamid. “Drivers are right to feel conned, but what we can’t do is carry on letting these dodgy diesel cars pollute our towns and cities with toxic air.”

Government fails to commit to diesel scrappage scheme in UK clean air plan

We need mental health support at work – and every employer should commit to it | Norman Lamb

We all have mental health, just as we all have physical health, and in both cases we are on a continuum, where our health can vary day to day. It is estimated that one in four people experience a mental health issue in any given year, and that one in six employees is depressed, anxious or suffering from stress-related problems at any time. However, many of us know little about mental health. We often don’t spot the signs that a colleague, employee, or we ourselves are struggling, and this delays help and recovery.

Last week Business in the Community (BiTC) released the most comprehensive report of its kind, called Mental Health at Work. Worryingly, the report uncovered the fact that over three-quarters of employees have experienced poor mental health, and almost half of workers would not talk to their manager about a mental health issue. And while employers are talking more about it, words are not translating into action.

There is a disconnect between the ideals of company bosses and the reality of employees when it comes to mental health. Most board members believe their organisation is supportive on the issue, but 56% of people who have disclosed a mental health issue at work said their employer took no mitigating actions, found BiTC. How can we close this gap between perception and reality? A vital and practical step employers can take, and a key recommendation of the BiTC report, is investment in first-aid training in mental health for staff.

Mental health first-aid is the mental health equivalent of a physical first-aid course. It teaches people the skills and confidence to recognise the signs and symptoms of common mental health issues, listen empathetically and effectively guide a person towards the right support.

Recently, I became a mental health first-aider myself, and now have the tools to start a meaningful conversation on the issue, something most of us would struggle to do. Could you think of the right words to say to someone who may be feeling suicidal? Having experienced loss in my family the training allowed me to reflect on what I might have done differently.

We spend a considerable amount of our lives at work and with more of us working longer hours, under more pressure, having mental health first-aid support in the workplace is critical not just for employees, but for businesses too. As it stands, mental health issues (stress, depression or anxiety) account for almost 70m days off sick per year, the most of any health condition.

Today, on World Mental Health Day, with support from Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) England and Mind, I am calling on the government to act and bring parity to mental and physical health in the workplace. I’m submitting an early day motion on the issue as the first step towards amending the current legislation, which requires employers to train staff in physical first aid, to in future include mental health first aid.

How can we possibly justify leaving the law as it is? So far as the NHS is concerned the government has committed to the principle of “parity of esteem” between physical and mental illness. Surely they must apply the same logic to the workplace.

Put simply, this is a call for every workplace to have trained mental health first-aiders just like they have physical first-aiders. A number of employers are taking action. WHSmith has committed to match the number of staff that are physical first-aiders with mental health first-aiders over the next 12 months.

There’s a growing momentum for change, and hundreds more businesses across a range of sectors are implementing mental health training for staff from Unilever and Crossrail to Channel 4. Employers have a duty of care to their workforce, and with the scale of mental issues in this country much more needs to be done. The government must act now to ensure every employee has access to mental health support at work.

We need mental health support at work – and every employer should commit to it | Norman Lamb

NHS "should not commit fortune on bodyweight loss surgery"

Yesterday the rationing body suggested that any person with a BMI of 30 – the threshold between obese and obese – must be deemed for the surgical treatment if they have been diagnosed with diabetes in the final decade.

It means practically one million a lot more folks would qualify to be regarded for the procedures.

Baroness Younger stated: “I don’t feel that bariatric surgery need to be an alternative for 800,000 individuals. The far more essential issue is that we truly make positive that men and women who get started to produce overweight and head for weight problems get powerful interventions prolonged just before they fall inside the criteria that would justify bariatric surgical treatment.”

She stated the vast majority of obese and obese individuals should be provided support by the NHS to shed the lbs.

In Might, Great recommended that up to two thirds of the population should be supplied state-funded slimming lessons run by firms this kind of as Weight Watchers.

The rationing body insists the cost of funding bariatric procedures for the obese, and bodyweight loss lessons for hundreds of thousands of overweight folks will be outweighed by the possible financial savings to the NHS if Britain can have the weight problems epidemic.

James Halstead, a bariatric surgeon at Leeds Nuffield hospital, told Radio 4’s Today programme: “The recent information has shown that the actual quantity of NHS-funded bariatric surgical procedures in the Uk is falling, not growing.

“It truly is falling from this kind of an extremely low baseline degree of around 8,000 instances annually that the concept that 1 can deal with 900,000 individuals in the subsequent 3 years with this avenue alone is nonsensical.”

NHS "should not commit fortune on bodyweight loss surgery"

Mothers and fathers must commit a lot more top quality time with their kids, says Royal School of Paediatrics and Youngster Overall health

Dad and mom ought to spend much more top quality time with children and not substitute or replace interaction with screens, the Royal University of Paediatrics and Kid Health (RCPCH) has claimed.

Dr Tim Ubhi, a spokesman for RCPCH, mentioned parents should have quality time with their youngsters, and encouraged them to have higher dialogue with their children.

The advisor paediatrician explained: “Currently in the western world, the mother or father/little one partnership is substituted or replaced by technology- Television, DVDs, iPads- employed to occupy youngsters even though we lead active lives.”

The comments come right after the American Academy of Paediatrics announced new suggestions for the 62,000 paediatricians it represents to inform dad and mom they ought to study to their children from birth.

Dr Ubhi gave his informal help for the proposals in the US but said that it did not imply it would become official policy right here.

He stated: “We haven’t manufactured it policy, there would have to be analysis but what I would say is mother and father ought to devote high quality time with young children and this is a way to have good quality time.”

The spokesman for RCPCH praised the tips for “trying to increase mother or father/kid interaction” due to the fact of what he claimed was a “clear disparity between social classes”. Dr Ubhi pointed to the truth that kids from wealthier backgrounds have a clear benefit and the American proposals were a way to “address the stability”.

He said the review behind the recommendations highlighted “an situation that requirements addressing” and added that the proposals “raised the profile of the want to devote high quality time with kids”.

Mothers and fathers must commit a lot more top quality time with their kids, says Royal School of Paediatrics and Youngster Overall health

Australians want to tax rich, commit on overall health and schools, depart own tax as is

Australians want the wealthy taxed much more, public investing on health and schooling improved, and their personal tax charge left specifically in which it is, in accordance to a survey released on Friday.

In sharp contrast to measures in the federal spending budget, Australians polled by the thinktank Per Capita uncovered a dramatic shift in the direction of support for investing much more on publicly funded solutions, and an improve in the perception that the nation’s wealthiest are not doing their honest share of the heavy lifting.

“Between 2010 and late 2012, our views of the tax system grew to become steadily significantly less generous – we felt more and more that we have been paying also considerably tax and our support for public investing, although higher, was falling,” mentioned the yearly survey’s summary.

“These sentiments have now reversed … [Australians] now reject the strategy to investing cuts mooted by the government’s commission of audit.”

The survey, carried out in February shortly right after the initial Commission of Audit report, found 70% of Australians feel the government need to spend much more on public companies. Just eight% believed it ought to commit less.

The survey also discovered that 53% of individuals believed they have been paying the correct quantity of tax, an approximate 17% swing away from the proportion who believe they pay out also much tax, when in contrast to the 2012 results.

“It’s a striking reversal from a quite consistent trend across the very first three years of the survey that noticed Australians feeling less generous about their tax contributions, to a place now exactly where men and women are saying, ‘We really don’t truly feel more than taxed and instead we want to make sure our public companies are protected and expanded,’ ” Per Capita’s executive director, David Hetherington, told Guardian Australia.

The survey discovered that a lot more than 7 out of ten people believe higher income earners do not shell out their fair share, but the final results revealed a level of “cognitive dissonance” between people who really don’t believe they count in the class.

Practically half the respondents who earned a high cash flow and who explained they paid also much tax also believed that other substantial revenue earners pay out too tiny.

“We’ve seen over a variety of many years that high income earners’ perception of what a large income is in Australia aren’t well grounded,” Hetherington mentioned. “People who are wealthy on an goal basis, do not see themselves as wealthy or higher cash flow earning.”

“We did ask how people would like to see public companies funded, and one particular of the responses was ‘higher revenue tax prices on the best five% of earners’ and that was the most well-liked.”

Subsequent in line, with 23%, was removal of tax concessions on superannuation and housing.

Hetherington explained the survey occurred weeks outside the normal “policy wonk” discussion that heats up shortly before a federal spending budget, so it was unlikely men and women were influenced by speculation all around what the treasurer, Joe Hockey, would reveal.

“However, I would say although that the broader political debate is a aspect that has an effect on the survey results,” he explained.

“I think what it shows is that the government has misread the mood of the Australian people, and in certain misread the value that people area on public solutions. We see a great deal of talk about value of residing pressures, but one particular of the factors that feeds into the way households perceive cost of living is entry to substantial top quality, minimal expense public services.

“If all of a sudden the kids’ Tafe program has gone up by a issue of four or five, we’re going to charge you $ 7 to go to the physician, we are continuing to subsidise non government schools at the cost of public colleges, I think individuals come to feel that.”

Far more than half of respondents mentioned that if the government is to boost funding to public schools, it must be accomplished by cutting paying on non-government colleges.

Australians want to tax rich, commit on overall health and schools, depart own tax as is

Woman arrested at Heathrow on suspicion of conspiracy to commit FGM

Police have run a week-long initiative at Heathrow aimed at preventing and detecting female genital mutilation. Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA

A 38-12 months-old lady has been arrested at Heathrow airport on suspicion of conspiracy to commit female genital mutilation (FGM), Scotland Yard says.

The British nationwide was held after arriving on a flight from Sierra Leone and taken to a west London police station the place she stays in custody.

A 13-12 months-outdated Sierra-Leonian lady travelling with the female was taken into the care of social providers.

Metropolitan police, Border Force and Nationwide Crime Company (NCA) officers on Friday concluded a week-lengthy initiative at Heathrow aimed at preventing and detecting FGM.

Woman arrested at Heathrow on suspicion of conspiracy to commit FGM